The explosion of “smart device” technology is well documented, with the focus for each release of each operating system being more functionality and greater capability for the end user. Since these developments have been driven by what has been named “the consumer-ization of technology,” the approach of nearly all carriers, devices, operating systems and application vendors has been to add more features and functionality to smart phones to be competitive.
However, this ignores the very real need for devices that are “purposed” for a specific function or set of functions. There are many use cases where devices are better utilized if users have no access to many of the items that are desirable to normal consumers and are installed on stock devices. These items can include both operating system settings as well as third party applications, which may be “bundled” with the device at the firmware level, for example, Frequently, distributors of devices need to restrict the use of those devices based on the needs of the end user of the device so that it can better support the business objectives of the project. Examples of such situations include, but are not limited to 1) carriers wishing to sell a device at a different and often lower price point who need to restrict use and network consumption to justify that price point, 2) commercial organizations that wish to distribute devices and ensure that they are used primarily for the distributed purpose, such as ordering or communicating to restricted individuals, 3) organizations that need to restrict a device's use to a subset of purposes, such as medical organizations that have to provide only HIPAA compliant applications while restricting non-compliant ones, service organizations who wish end user devices be limited to specific applications to preserve expenses and productivity, or others, 4) organizations and network providers that wish to ensure that the connectivity to technologies such as Wi-Fi and others are controlled and prioritized in order to restrict connectivity to desired access methods and locations, and 5) carriers that wish to automatically increase a purposed device's functionality over the air in order to add additional functionality and charge a higher price point. Removal of the undesired features is extremely difficult or impossible, even for the carriers that sell the devices to enterprise customers. Currently, technology provides restricted devices that are able to run only one application at a time as a simplistic solution to this problem. For example, in place of check out registers many stores use tablets which run only a payment application. These restricted devices cannot access any other functions though and no longer function as a smartphone, tablet, or other device. The present invention, however allows multiple applications to exist, and even run, on a device but limits each of the applications, settings, or other options to only allow the desired features so that the device can still have multiple functions while being appropriately limited. The present invention is a novel solution that allows this to be easily accomplished, and also be dynamically controlled.
The present invention utilizes unique technology and skill sets in concert with technologies from the operating system manufacturers, Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), Carriers, and Application Vendors.